Game apparatus that require fast reactive responses by players are fun to play and often very competitive. Such games have been patented in the past but leave room for new games that offer more and/or different challenges and greater excitement. New and fresh features for games are desirable but creating and developing such features in a successful manner have often proven difficult.
As mentioned, hand held electronic games are disclosed in earlier patents as recited below. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,261,563 for an “Electronic Time Reaction Game” issued in 1981 to Goldfarb purports to disclose a time reaction game where a microprocessor in an apparatus having two sets of lights, one for each of two players, initiates a game cycle by first generating a ready signal, either from a speaker or from the lights, or both, then delaying for a varying time interval, the interval being unknown to the players, and thereafter generating a start signal, either from the speaker or the lights, or both. The object of the game is to play enough cycles for one player to activate all of the lights of his set of lights before his opponent can activate all of his set of lights. Once the start signal is issued the players attempt to manually depress a response switch before his opponent can do so to win a score. In one embodiment, each player has two response switches from which to choose activation. One switch activates a light from the player's set of lights while the other switch deactivates a light from his opponent's set of lights. In the same year, U.S. Pat. No. 4,298,198 issued for an “Electronic Game Apparatus For A Single Player or Opposing Players” to Huang and Ling-Huang, and purports to disclose an elongated box with a series of lights, sixteen are shown, and several switches. A switch is depressed to cause one of two lights to glow, the two lights being several lights away from an end of the series of lights. Depending on which light is illuminated, one of the players must depress another switch to energize a streak of lights to begin. Succeeding lights are quickly energized giving the impression that the lights are moving toward one of the ends of the series of lights. The object of the game is to have the players alternately react quickly enough to prevent the streak from energizing the end light nearest him/her such that the light streak moves back and forth between the players. The back and forth streaking will continue until one of the players fails to react quickly enough, whereupon an end light is energized, the game ends, and the other player wins or score a point.
In 1982, a U.S. Patent issued to Breslow and Erickson, U.S. Pat. No. 4,326,710, for a “Talking Electronic Game” purporting to include an integrated circuit voice synthesizer to generate a plurality of first partial phrases, each forming the beginning of a complete phrase, and a plurality of second partial phrases, each forming the end of a complete phrase. The beginning and ending phrases are assigned at random to a plurality of push buttons, and the object of the game is to match up, from memory, the beginning and ending phrases of various complete phrases by appropriate actuation of the various push buttons. The winner is the player who matches all of the partial phrases correctly with the fewest number of incorrect match ups. Another U.S. Pat. No. 4,913,432 issued in 1990 for an “Electromechanical Reaction-Time Game Toy” to Barra, and purports to disclose another reaction type game where a trigger or push button is attached to a drive such as a stretched rubber band mounted in a box. The drive is also attached to pointers movable along marked panels mounted on opposite longitudinal sides of the box. The marks on the panels, which are randomly arranged, serve to indicate values such as numbers or baseball indicia. Depressible stop buttons are also mounted along the sides of the box. The game starts when the trigger is rotated so as to release the rubber band causing the pointers to move quickly along the panels. The player uses the depressible buttons to stop the pointers at a desirable location along the panel in order to achieve the highest number or run score. An electrical embodiment may use a series of lights instead of the pointers to indicate motion along the box.
A year later, Barra received U.S. Pat. No. 5,060,941 for an “Electronic Reaction-Time Game Toy” which operated as the device disclosed in his first mentioned patent but is electronically based. U.S. Pat. No. 5,685,776 issued to Stambolic and others in 1997 for a “Hand-Held Electronic Game Devices”, and purports to disclose hand-held electronic game devices having elongated tubular forms with a centrally mounted electronic displays and various types of controls at either end of the tubes, such as push buttons, pull switches, rotary switches, toggle switches, spring-loaded balls, flip switches, momentary switches, slides switches, twist knobs, mouse controls, pointer balls, and lever arms. The game also includes a computer that is operated by the controls, a display and a speaker. The pull switches include return springs. One embodiment shown in FIG. 6, is a game intended to be held in a horizontal orientation such that the end handles may be twisted and pushed inwards by both hands of a player, allowing the game to be manipulated to effect play. The games disclosed include displays with an amoeba moving through a hostile environment, a shark attempting to “eat” as many fish as possible while avoiding dangerous situations, a man on a pogo stick attempting to save a city from high flying buzzards, various shapes which must be capture and correctly united, a motocross moving across while avoiding obstacles, and a martial arts fighter and his opponents.
In 2000 Klitsner and Welch were issued U.S. Pat. No. 6,086,478 for a “Hand-Held Voice Game” purporting to disclose a game device having an elongated housing with a controller, a speaker and three different input switches, a pressure switch pressed by a player, a pull knob and a twist knob. The game starts with an audible signal that relates to one of the input switches. After actuation of the selected input switch, the controller will issue a second audible signal relating to one of the three switches that must be actuated by the player within a predetermined time. If the player is successful the game goes on. If the player does not actuate the correct switch within the allotted time an error signal is issued. Another patent issued to Klitsner a year later, U.S. Pat. No. 6,210,278, also entitled “Hand-Held Voice Game”. This second patent is a continuation-in-part of the 2000 patent and additionally discloses a game with two curved handles, a controller, a speaker and five input devices, a pressure switch, a pull knob, a twist knob, a spin switch and a lever switch. The game is played as described for the device in the 2000 patent. A third U.S. Patent issued to Klitsner, along with Clemens and Levenberg, in 2006, U.S. Pat. No. 7,044,857, is for a “Hand-Held Musical Game” in which the game apparatus is formed as a stylized guitar with a body portion and a neck portion. The neck portion is rotatable relative to the body portion, the body portion includes a strum bar, and there is a slide element movable along the neck portion. Electronics are in the apparatus to provide audio and/or visual instructions to a player to rotate the neck portion, move the slide element or manipulate the strum bar in a predetermined period of time.
All of the game apparatus mentioned above are of interest but none of them provide the play value of the invention described in detail herein.